


In Tempus Belli

by winterlain



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-06 02:13:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12807390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winterlain/pseuds/winterlain
Summary: Izlude and Wiegraf meet on the eve of war.





	In Tempus Belli

Izlude is smitten with Wiegraf almost immediately.  He observes solemnly from the pews as the Templar inductee is affirmed and bestowed tabard and sword, the cloth and the blade in service of holy Glabados.  White morning light filters from the cathedral windows above and wreathes the bowed golden head like a halo, brilliant and burning.  “Rise, my son,” the old celebrant touches the vengeful angel’s forehead and confers unto him the sacrament.  The angel casts his eyes heavenward, filled with rage and resolution, and it is done.

Izlude knows him by his reputation; low-born revolutionary, persuasive negotiator, leader of men, gullible and disgraced.  More obscure whispers paint him as an idolater, a drunkard and a whore.  He can’t be sure what to believe, sitting at table with the exiled seraph or mere man who speaks in an accent nearly as cultured as any aristocrat’s and the solemn set of whose jaw is contrasted by the unexpectedly gentle lilt of his voice.

“Ah, but you are young yet, and the gods may grant you many an opportunity in a world reborn.  Let us hope our work will bring a swift conclusion to this conflict, that we can spend the days ahead rebuilding towards peace and restitution.”  Something in the optimistic tone seems guarded and disingenuous, as if he thinks that Izlude has been sent to test him.  In reality, he had happened upon Wiegraf reading alone in the chancel alcove, and like a hapless moth drawn to an irresistible flame, found himself coaxed into admitting his anxieties and woes to the older knight.  The Church would have found in him a skilled confessor.

“I excelled while training at the garrison, so perhaps I came to overestimate my abilities, or it’s even worse and I’ve just been the product of nepotistic coddling all along.”  He traces a finger along the grooves in the ancient wood of the heavy table, embarrassed by his own candidness but helpless to stop his outpouring to this new and mysterious, seemingly sympathetic ear.  Although he suspects that no one is ever fully prepared for it, to mention nothing of those, like Wiegraf, who were recruited to fight a rapidly escalating war without the luxury of simulation exercises, he is finding the real thing to be a rude awakening and a far cry from the organized drills to which he’s accustomed.

“I sometimes wonder why we bother to practise, when there is no honour, no law to follow on the battlefield.  Men are as animals; life ends in an instant and everything you’ve ever worked for is just…gone.  It isn’t glorious, only terrible and incomprehensible.”  Wiegraf relaxes marginally, sensing that Izlude speaks from the heart.  He knows these things only too well, the haunted look of the dying a burden that has become tolerable only by dint of its weary familiarity.  He thinks of those who do not recover from witnessing the senselessness and horror of war.  Returning to ordinary life in its routine and mundane safety, the innocent query of child or spouse over a dropped spoon ignites a thing corrupt and maddening, because there are no answers and never will be.

Watching a new soldier struggle through these realizations is no untraveled territory for Wiegraf, who wonders vaguely whether his own nine-and-twenty years make him too young to be a battle-hardened veteran of one war, plunging headlong into the next.  “Aye, it becomes no less horrifying, but you will learn to endure it.  You mustn’t allow devastation to consume you, for to lose your resolve is to sully the honour of those who sacrificed their lives.”

He softens, regarding Izlude’s wan and pained expression.  “If war is but a conflict of ideals, then I suppose mine are antiquated, but as time passes I find in them comfort and they become dearer to me than ever.  A lifetime ago I grew up on the Fenlands.  They were a beautiful and unforgiving place before their ruin, the soil was moss-rich and the marshland could suddenly swallow man or cattle alive, who wandered there unguided.  In summer, the sky seemed to stretch forever upwards, and I would take my sister and little cousins to gather berries and nettle-leaves in the low-lying woodland.  We built our fires by the lake as the moon rose, cloaked in shimmering stars to her heavenly bower, and it felt as though we walked beneath the very apex of the earth.”

 “We cared for the land, gave her our offerings in every season, and in return she opened her arms to us, never leaving us wanting for anything.  Back then, we worshipped what you would call the old gods, a practice that I’m afraid our good Church has come to condemn.  We sang our hymns and consecrated our prayers under the open sky, and kept the rites of fertility, hunt and harvest.”  It is true then, the rumours of Wiegraf’s Pharist affiliations and the reasons behind his reluctance to collaborate.  Izlude thinks unbidden of the tales that are told, savage men performing blood rituals and unholy sacrifice, rapacious debaucheries in the shadow of the moon.  His surprise must show.

“Hm, I see they have spread their doctrine only too well.  Do not look so shocked, what is it that they have taught you?  That we raped and feasted upon the flesh of men, that we bound our souls to the devil and must be purged from the land wholesale?”  The brutal massacres at Tchigolith and Poescas had left bodies piled so deeply that it was said the spirits of the fallen soldiers and peasants alike had forgotten themselves and become eternally enmeshed in their anguish, cleaving to the earth and cursing it into a barren, reeking wasteland.  Battle waged throughout the rural counties had served as an expedient cover and justification for the genocide of heathens.

“No, not that,” Izlude goes pink about the ears, trying to recover himself.  “I…both wonder at and admire how you must find the strength to fight on after all you have seen.  You have suffered outrage and more loss than I can imagine.”  He feels young, naïve and sheltered, and not a little guilty for the atrocities that others have committed in the name of his faith.  “Are there still those who keep the traditions alive?”  The inquisitors have not burned practitioners of the old religion within Izlude’s lifetime but open worship is still considered uncivilized and taboo, its survivors having quietly assimilated into Ajoran society as Wiegraf has done.

“Aye there are, but with discretion.  The most important tenets live not in rituals but within ourselves.”  Wiegraf pushes up his sleeve to reveal the faint markings of the druids, old designs in cobalt woad-dye.  “You see?  Just as the scars of battle, these marks have faded, but their reason and memory are etched upon my heart.  Do not forget that which has forged you, be it faith, hearth and family, the loyalty of a friend or its bitter loss.  I am made by these things and by betrayals that can only be answered in revenge and justice.  Only in this way can we find for ourselves purpose in chaos.”

***

Izlude lays abed with his thoughts swirling, as he is wont to do with increasing frequency of late.  The tense spells in between manoeuvres, when the covert dart-and-thrust of siege-craft affords him but peripheral glimpses of damning and impenetrable negotiations carried out in back rooms while he awaits orders, have become nearly as intolerable as the rapid and brutal skirmishes themselves.  Active warfare has all but halted the delivery of letters, so he worries for Meliadoul, who has been summoned ahead to hold the front line in Zeltennia.  It is small consolation to know that word would travel quickly should any misfortune befall Folmarv’s only daughter.  His stern father grows more preoccupied and distant than ever as fresh entanglements and subterfuge unravel in the eastern provinces.

Even his beloved lieutenants are posted far away, in an elite detachment sent ostensibly to provide protection for a branch of the fractured royal family.  That they are sons of Lesalia makes them conveniently inconspicuous amongst the nobles, the perfect eyes for the Church at court.  Izlude yearns for their company and the sweet, secret comfort that they taught him so well.  He is glad that they have one another to rely upon in these mistrustful and treacherous days.

Listless and lonely, he has gravitated towards seeking out Wiegraf’s companionship often.  He feels a sort of freedom in talking to the outsider, confiding in him thoughts that he would normally hesitate to speak aloud, and it must cut both ways since the other tells him tales of his youth and the Fifty Year War, the ill-fated Corpse Brigade and on occasion even discloses some details of his indiscretions and misadventures.  Izlude goggles in disbelief that the consummate white knight could ever have gotten up to such outrageous doings as smuggling a well-timed mule onto a town pulpit.  It was a gesture of political statement, but even so, he’s relieved to know that humour lurks beneath the often stony exterior.

It’s the first connection he’s made since graduating the barracks that feels akin to the camaraderie that he so misses, but it’s a little different as well.  Wiegraf is worldly and dashing in a way altogether unalike the Church boys he keeps company with, or even the other Templars.  He spars with flair and corrects Izlude’s technique with patience and good humour, teaching him small remarkable things without a hint of arrogance.  It is easy to see how so many rallied around his charisma and the genuine attention he pays in listening to the troubles of others.  Izlude thinks that Wiegraf must deign to spend time with him only because of his uneasy footing around the council.  Still, he’s caught somewhere in between wanting to be like him or to be with him.

He isn’t pretty like Winter and Chamberlain, but his pleasant chiseled features and compact muscular body belie the electric fervor that Izlude first felt crackling almost palpably on Wiegraf’s confirmation day.  In spite of lengthy poverty and hardship, he is still every inch the gentleman-soldier, which makes it only the more thrilling to know what lies underneath the polished boots and perfectly creased cravat.  There is something beautiful and illicit in the old pagan markings that he’s glimpsed a few times now, and Izlude’s pulse races as he thinks of how they would look above him, in bold relief under the moonlight, as he fucks himself onto his own spit-slickened fingers and imagines that it’s Wiegraf pressing him into the mattress.

The awakening of his desires is both a revelation and a problem.  To know what he wants in a tangible way, exactly how he craves to be kissed and touched, serves to sharpen both his longing and his guilt.  He’s learned things about his own body and the bodies of other men, in the precious stolen moments with his lieutenants that feel so exquisite and right, but fill him with doubt and shame when he is alone.  He can’t quite bring himself to bear out these thoughts at Confession, a fact which serves to compound the mingling of uneasy feelings he carries with him lately.  He comes with a strangled cry, feeling whorish and ashamed, and lays awake afterwards staring at the ceiling, disconsolate and wishing for someone to hold him.

***

Wiegraf doesn’t drink of the sacrament.  It’s no surprise to Izlude by now that he isn’t enamoured with the faith that drove his own to exile, but the fact that he feigns to do so, a tightening of the jaw as his lips touch the wine, is puzzling.  He accepts the host without complaint; it’s far more difficult to pretend to eat a piece of bread.

They have a regular meeting place now, high up on the cathedral parapet in the shadow of its belfry.  It has actually been Izlude’s secret refuge for years, a result of his lifelong affinity for scrambling up to precarious heights whenever the opportunity arose, quite often to the chagrin of his nursemaids and tutors.  Wiegraf had spotted him up there one day whilst walking the lay of the building, ever the watchful strategist.

Izlude arrives first, fleet of foot and with ease of practice, self-conscious about seeming like he’s showing off.  Wiegraf follows, pulling himself up and over the ledge with a little difficulty, and Izlude politely pretends not to notice as he catches his breath.  The sun is setting over the mainland, and they watch as it dips past the horizon in Gallione and bathes the sky with indigo twilight.  Mullonde at dusk is peaceful and seems a world removed from the despair that hangs over the rest of Ivalice, threatening to tear her asunder.  As if in cheerful denial of the realm’s troubles, the weather has been unseasonably warm and temperate this springtime, bringing zephyrs that harbour the promise of summer despite the fact that it’s only April.

They commence with a duel, as is their custom, Izlude assuming the role of Ramza, the heretic and destroyer.  He’s never met the infamous pariah of House Beoulve himself, so relies upon description to recreate his style of combat.  Izlude’s footwork and endurance are second to none, thus he has no trouble with evasive, lightning-quick parrying, but he can’t depend on his jumping skills and his command of magick is sadly limited to a few low level, rudimentary bolt spells.  He tries to imagine how a fugitive soldier would conserve resources and adopt a defensive strategy to out-manoeuvre his opponent in a war of attrition.

The exercise is given further flavour by Wiegraf’s variation of technique.  He opens with straightforward, movement-breaking long cuts, as if delivering blows in righteous anger.  Easier to dodge than parry, and Izlude is running circles around what seems to be a series of increasingly forceful and inaccurate swings before he becomes a little too complacent and realizes that it’s a feint.  Suddenly there’s a flash of scarlet robes behind him, and he barely manages to escape the explosion of white hot energy that ripples outward from Wiegraf’s arcing blade.  He takes advantage of the refractory time to charge in and land a couple of quick jabs calculated to reduce power rather than to deal heavy damage, before retreating back a safe distance.

The dance continues in this manner, Wiegraf’s heavier swordplay and erratic position changes in counterpoint to Izlude’s light, rapid strikes and jackrabbit movements.  Izlude is beginning to think that his approach bears fruit, and lunges forth to slow Wiegraf down when he’s caught by a pommel to the wrist and the flat of Wiegraf’s blade to his back sends him flying, knocking the wind out of him.  He curls up to protect his ribcage, deflecting the downward swing that sends shockwaves through his arms and shoulders that he knows he’ll pay for later.  He rolls sideways and thinks hastily back to his training, kicking out at Wiegraf’s sword arm and knocking it aside just as he prepares to deliver the next blow.

Instead of falling off-kilter, Wiegraf ducks forward and with a leveraged flick, disarms Izlude of his sword while his focus is still on his feet.  As he scrambles to recover it, a heavy palm descends upon his nape and pushes his face to the flagstones.  He tries to struggle up but is pinned down bodily, his elbows tucked underneath as he is rolled over and subdued, chest-to-chest under Wiegraf’s full weight.  Gulping for air, he gazes up into tumultuous storm-blue eyes and is aware that he must be turning bright red as he feels his stomach drop.  From this distance he can count Wiegraf’s pale freckles and smell the warm musk of his perspiration and cologne.  The sensuous full bow of Wiegraf’s mouth forms a grin that is triumphant and bemused.  Izlude lets out an undignified whimper and mutters, “Oh, fuck.”

***

Wiegraf lets him up and allows him to recover his breath and the remnants of his dignity, retrieving both of their swords to inspect for damage.  They sit down side by side, propped up against the ledge, wordlessly passing a water skin back and forth as the last light departs from the sky.  Izlude takes a long swallow and thinks frantically of how to break the silence without further incriminating himself; Wiegraf smiles mildly into the distance and leaves him to squirm a little.

“Do you normally observe such temperant habits, or only at Penance?”

Wiegraf exhales through his nose and gives his head a shake, “And methought my discretion to be sufficient.”  He waits a beat and can’t resist teasing, “But at least I am reassured that only you would watch me so closely.  Luckily for me, I divine that your intentions are lascivious rather than insidious.”  Even in the settling darkness Izlude colours like a summer beetroot and buries his face in his hands with a mortified groan.  Wiegraf ruffles his windswept brown locks and lets out a genuine laugh, for what feels like the first time he’s done so in years.

Izlude peeks out from behind his gloves, “You…aren’t revolted, then?  I confess that I’ve felt strangely drawn to you since you arrived, but still know not why.  When you were confirmed, there was something in your expression that seemed to pierce the core of me, and I wanted to know what it was.  I was so surprised when you continued to endure my company, and chastised myself for following you around like a gnat, especially knowing that which you need from my father.  Everyone steps with such heavy purpose and I feel as if I am but a child who cannot do anything right, and who now bothers you with insignificant trifles.  But I am pathetic and selfish, and swear to never annoy you with these unseemly thoughts if only we may remain…friends?”  He can’t keep the question out of his voice, unsure of what his relationship with this unlikely stranger has become.

Wiegraf ruminates upon this for some moments before replying at length, “It surprises me to say it, but aye, I have indeed come to value our friendship.  You have been true and kind to me, and you flatter me with your attention, however unexpected it may be.”  He hesitates, then something in him seems to give, moved by Izlude’s simple and naked trust.

“My alliance with your Church is one of expedience, a fact which I have never made a secret of.  I tolerate the routines and rituals, for to me they are but window-dressing, and even the worst of the heresy examinations that were carried out this century pale in comparison to the many thousands exploited and murdered for the benefit of the sovereign houses.  I came here to accomplish a singular task, with the aid of resources beyond my own ken, and have never expected a pleasant time of it.”

“After the death of my sister and the dissolution of all that I had stood for, I became a man lost and drowning in his own despair.  It was a harsh winter in the northlands to which I fled, and I fell to drink so heavily that I would sometimes lose days at a stretch.  I became separated from my mount and found myself penniless and ill, wandering from one dreary coastal hamlet to the next.  I gazed into the churning waters of the Larner Channel and thought of throwing myself to their icy embrace, or of sailing from this cursed land to start anew in faraway Romanda.”

“As I lay freezing and delirious on the pier, caring not whether I lived or died, a woman found me and brought me back to her cottage.  She made a cot before her hearth and fed me soups and potions, tending to me through my fever and starvation.  I looked into her face and thought I beheld my own sister beyond the veil of time, grown older and hale, strong-willed and stern as ever.  I wept that such lines would never dignify her visage and felt that her spirit had become manifest in this kind soul who had saved my life.  As my sickness abated and my strength returned, I knew what I must then do.”

“I traveled south again through the Yuguewood, communing with the ghosts that had become familiar company to me.  Their voices rose up in chorus, beseeching me to succor them, and I gave them my promise, burning a great pyre to consecrate my word.  When I reached Riovanes, I frequented its many taverns, never to drink but to glean intelligence and rebuild my war chest.  To survive, I sold my sword and when there was meagre business for hired mercenaries, I sold my body.  Any shame of the flesh became but a petty indignity, an atonement to be endured in service of the greater goal.”  Wiegraf’s tone is collected and even as he recounts all that he has suffered through, and Izlude’s heart breaks for him, for all the pain and misery and anguish he has borne.

“I came to the Lenalian Plateau as the ground was thawing and the rains of spring renewed the land.  Miluda slept within the cold earth, forever young and perfect and damned.  I laid down beside her and kept vigil until the dawn broke, bleak and grey and filled with birdsong.  I begged of her a forgiveness that I can never hope to deserve, and swore an oath of vengeance, the fulfillment of which is all that I have left to live for.  That is when your clansman found me and persuaded me to return with him hither.”

Wiegraf seems to deflate, his silhouette slumping and lessened, having unburdened himself from the full weight of his journey.  Izlude cannot see his eyes in the darkness, but he feels something waver in his spirit, in this courageous and stubborn soldier who sits beside him, half-broken and half-mad but refusing to surrender.  Gently and tentatively, as to give Wiegraf space to avoid him should he so wish, Izlude turns to place just a hand on his shoulder.  Wiegraf does not move away, but remains still a minute before shifting to accept the embrace of the boy who offers it, the yet-innocent young man who seeks only to understand and love and comfort him in a world of manipulation, corruption and chaos.

***

One evening as the cicadas are beginning to stir and the waning sunlight lingers late in the day, Wiegraf brings Izlude to a coppice near the shoreline instead of their rooftop hideaway.  There is evidence of Wiegraf’s having been here before, in the low branches woven into a makeshift canopy and the charred earth beneath the ring of stones where kindling is stacked to make a fire.  Across the bay, the waters of the Black Coral Sea frolic and shimmer, and for a moment Izlude imagines he can see in them the valleys and spires of the old Ydoran empire; whether a trick of the light or ancient spirits, he cannot know.

They cross swords in the dying day, and above them the moon rises full and stark as it must have done so long ago over the fens of Wiegraf’s memory.  When the match concludes, they rest by the crackling fire and oil their blades, surrounded by the sounds of chirping night-bugs and lapping waves.  It feels as though they are alone together on this earth.  Wiegraf stares into the fire and explains why they have come to this place.

“This is a sacred night, for it marks the beginning of summer and a time of growth and shelter.  In days of peace we would ask the Goddess for blessings of abundant crop and cattle, and for the young to wed well and bear healthy offspring.  But now we find ourselves in a time of war, and these things so distant as to be from another lifetime, not my own.  I know I am forsaken by my gods and reviled by those who would replace them, and yet tonight I am compelled to ask whatever power still listens to grant me a warrior’s protection, that I may be safeguarded for long enough to complete my task.”

Here, Wiegraf produces a glimmering shard from the folds of his tunic.  Izlude recognizes its shape and its unearthly sapphire glow from the descriptions in scriptures, but cannot quite believe what he beholds.

“Is that truly…”  Wiegraf turns the stone over in his hands and places it in Izlude’s, so he can inspect it for himself.  His tone is wry, “A piece of glass spun upon a peddler’s tale, for all I know.  Still, when your father bequeathed it to my care, I felt something of the old magick I once believed in.  Perhaps its shape, the horn of battle, spoke to me.”  Izlude wrestles with his shock and surreality that an artefact of such power could actually exist and that he holds it in his own hands; like most devout Ajorans of his time, he had heretofore believed the legend of the Zodiac Braves to be one of parable.

“Gods, it’s beautiful,” he breathes, barely daring to touch it with his fingertips.  It somehow feels hot and cold all at once.  He returns it to Wiegraf, his mind swimming with the implications of this newfound knowledge.  “This is my father’s true will, then.  Not a struggle waged between the secular forces, but the resurrection of our saviour.  Can such a thing really be?”  He feels dizzy and disoriented, as if reality has slipped its bonds to reveal arcane truths too great and terrifying for his soul to bear.  He gazes at the myriad stars in the endless night sky and feels his life to be infinitesimally small and insignificant.

Wiegraf brings him back to himself, with a touch to his cheek.  They have done barely more than hold hands and exchange brief, chaste kisses, yet Izlude’s blood sings with anticipation each time they embrace, at the promise in Wiegraf’s darkened gaze.  Tonight they are part of something greater than themselves, their fleeting lives but whispers amongst the chorus of voices that bend and shape the world’s progression, echoing life and death and rebirth through the centuries and into millennia.  To live and exist now in this moment as they do means at once everything and nothing.

Laying aside tabard and tunic, Wiegraf strips to the waist and stands with his head bowed before the pyre.  His body is battered and scarred, but the broad shoulders and deep-cut muscles are beautiful still, his bearing dignified and resolute.  Wending across his arms and torso, the old blue markings have been painted anew, inky serpents and sigils that seem to come alive in the billowing firelight.  Izlude is transfixed as he watches Wiegraf walk into the flames and genuflect at their very heart.  Aries rises aglow above his outstretched palm and the space around them becomes engulfed in darkness.

Later he remembers vivid fragments; strong hands pulling off his clothing, standing naked together inside a ring of fire that does not consume their bodies but seems instead to purify and forge them, the touch of their bare, tumescent skin at long, long last.  In blue dye, Wiegraf draws a rune of shielding over Izlude’s heart, next to where hangs the rood he wears about his neck, and both wards burn into him their protective aegis.  Izlude kneels before Wiegraf and caresses his thick, uncircumcised phallus in its nest of golden curls, bringing it to his lips as if in primeval benediction.

Painted in woad and smeared with tallow, Izlude lays upon the sandy floor of the clearing, panting and writhing, spreading his quivering thighs in a brazen spectacle of desire and invitation.  His own cock bobs achingly hard and wet against his stomach, and he can feel himself clenching around Wiegraf’s broad fingers as they stretch and prepare him.  Izlude experiences a moment of panic just as Wiegraf pushes into him; he’s only had an actual cock inside of him on a couple of occasions, and never one so big, but the discomfort soon passes and is replaced by the brimming, pleasurable and forbidden pressure of being utterly fucked open and filled up.

Wiegraf holds his shaking hips steady, mindful even in the midst of their frenetic coupling, and Izlude wriggles to slot them closer together, drawing Wiegraf down to kiss him.  He is bent nearly double as he’s pounded into mercilessly from above, the powerful snap of hips against his thighs and buttocks a punishing contrast to the careful, stilling grip of Wiegraf’s hands.  It is blasphemous and intense and exhilarating that nothing else should feel as this does, neither prayer nor blessing, nor even the rush of battle able to set his every nerve alight as does this divine and fleshly act.  Pressing his lips to the designs on Wiegraf’s skin, Izlude feels that in this place they go unseen by the eyes of God, two warriors baptized in flame, consecrating their bond before an ancient and more dangerous power.

As Izlude struggles up for leverage, Wiegraf perceives the shape of feathers spreading out from beneath him, the pinned-down white wings of a dying swan or fallen angel that beat against the ground and break apart as the illusion disperses.  He gathers the sweat-streaked body, small but strong, against his own with a sudden and fierce tenderness.  Shifting their position, he rests Izlude in the lee of his body again, turning him to face downwards this time so that Wiegraf can angle his thrusts right to the pulsing hot centre of him, curling his fingers around to capture the swollen, dripping ache between his legs.  Trapped below him, Izlude becomes his pinioned quarry, surging up to meet impalement, his breathless cries singing out pain and pleasure as they become one and the same.

They tip over into the abyss, clinging to one another as they fall.  The stars above Wiegraf’s head are blotted out by a churning void, rising up around him in the shape of ram’s horns.  He bends to touch his forehead to Izlude’s as they are suspended together in the moment beyond death, and it feels like absolution.

***

The inbound currents of the Black Coral Sea run chilly at this time of year after the warmth of the day has faded, raising gooseflesh on Izlude’s arms and legs as he floats, sated and boneless.  The night air is serene and the water’s surface stretches outwards like an infinite pane of starry, obsidian mirror-glass, through which ghostlike glimmers of its eponymous tendrils stir softly in their sandy basin.  Further away, beneath the placid surface sleep the wreckage and relics of a distant time, and it seems hardly possible that this vast expanse could be where once thrived a dense and burgeoning civilization, more advanced and enlightened than their own war-torn era.

Izlude thinks that if time were to stop and he could live forever in a moment, that he might choose this one.  He ducks his head under the bracing tide and comes up tasting salt brine, shaking droplets from his face and hair.  Wiegraf’s arms catch him from behind with a splash, pulling him against his warm, broad chest.  Even after all they have done tonight, Izlude feels his cheeks heat as he’s drawn in for a slow, devouring kiss, the perfect hot slide of Wiegraf’s tongue against his own awakening a bone-deep yearning unobscured by fire and frenzy.  He realizes that yes, this is what he wants most of all, to be held and caressed skin-to-skin, taken apart slowly by intimate touches and shared breaths.

Rough fingers stroke and tease him until he’s erect and squirming, begging shamelessly for Wiegraf to make him come.  In return, he’s kissed by a mouth that quirks upwards in amusement at his youthful vigour and insatiability.  Wiegraf himself feels young again, surprised that he once again knows the simple pleasure of holding someone close like this, that he should ever retrace the tender steps of love-making.  With a pang, he thinks how in this, his body can finally be his own, not a tool of war, nor a canvas to be cut apart and painted upon, no longer a symbol of protest or a plaything bought for other men’s ill-use.

Afterward, they rekindle the fire and stretch out as they dry themselves on the sand.  Izlude feels cleansed and tranquil, his short hair stiff with sea water, muscles sore and satisfied.  He brushes fingertips over the symbol that Wiegraf has marked him with, washed clean from their swim into a distinctive translucent bruise.  He sends up thanks, something that verges on a prayer for what has transpired this night, that he should learn such enormous things and dignify their weight with his own pledge of purpose, guided by friend and mentor to find his place, small but sure, in the great interlocking puzzle of the universe.

Tomorrow they will ride for the mainland, and Izlude wishes for nothing more than to linger here with Wiegraf until dawn, drawing out this last magickal night to its very end, but his body yawns in protest and his limbs grow heavy.  Wiegraf cradles him in his lap, letting Izlude doze as he strokes the cherubic face, watching dark eyelashes flutter against downy cheeks and the peaceful swell of his chest.  He thinks of eternity and what his life has meant, the miracle or accident of his existence in this place and time.  Suddenly, he finds, that he wants to live, to continue on through loss and pain and devastation, love and joy and elation, that there may be no truer reason than to experience these things and to say, I am alive and have been touched by all that it means.

***

They stand side by side in the nave of the great cathedral, resplendent in their brilliant armour and hallowed ensigns, shining and sanctified.  The soldiers of Saint Mullonde bow their heads and lift their voices in a profound and tremulous refrain that rises upwards to the vaulted arches, immolated there in rays of apostolic sunlight.  Stooped and frail in his scarlet cap and mantle, the High Confessor delivers sermon and prayer, and then Folmarv Tengille rises to the pulpit and speaks to his flock, reminding them of their sacred purpose and holding them in thrall with impassioned rhetoric, roaring glory and gold, no lamb but a Lion of God.

Izlude hangs upon his father’s every word, ever in awe, in the great shadow of this man whose actions will surely be writ into the annals of history.  Beside him sounds the soft clink of plate mail as Wiegraf stirs, not so moved by divine promises or an orator’s familiar artifice, but imbued with his own determination nonetheless.  Their shared and secret knowledge hangs between them, weighted not with sin and shame, but instead made buoyant with the significance of what they must accomplish.  He catches a flash of blue eyes and the barest of knowing smiles, and ducks his head a little before returning the same.

They both think of family, of their fierce and relentless shield-maiden sisters rallying fearlessly into the fray, of fathers who taught them the measure of a man’s mettle, the worth of his dignity and principles.  Izlude imagines a mother whom he never knew, who died ushering him into this world, and Wiegraf remembers a handsome and pragmatic woman of the willows, whose hands spun woolen broadcloth and healed arrow-wounds with the ease of scraped knees.  They think of friendship, of fallen comrades and staunch allies, of the pride and loyalty and compassion forged in shared tribulation.  Forward they must go, but they go not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Wiegraf’s religious conflict is heavily based on the dynamics of Christianity and Celtic Paganism in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon. (If you have not read it, please go read it, it is basically A+ Arthurian fanfiction). At first I wasn’t sure whether to make Pharism the ousted faith or to treat it as a separate entity altogether, as it seemed like too much of an organized sect, but went for it anyways since the persecution themes fit. Although I recall Wiegraf’s remarks in the canon of the game to indicate some form of atheism or at least religious skepticism, I thought it would be interesting to give him a stronger identitarian reason than economic class (or a compounding one) for his successful rallying of the peasantry in the Fifty Year War, his integrity in leading the Corpse Brigade (e.g. not wanting to be perceived as savages), and his reluctance to ally with the Church of Glabados. I chose the Tchigolith Fenlands as his birthplace because the imagery reminded me of Wuthering Heights’ Heathcliff on the moors.
> 
> (On a tangential note, I live in Canada and issues of Indigenous Truth and Reconciliation have been on my mind vis a vis genocide, assimilation, and military service. I wanted to be careful not to put overt privilege politics onto a non-racialized character, especially one from a story where there are actual characters of colour that undergo race-based power struggles. Hopefully my stretch of an allusion to Wounded Knee is a forgivable one.)
> 
> I tried to reference Izlude’s and Wiegraf’s respective in-game skill sets during their sparring match, and really wanted to use Wiegraf’s monk class abilities, but over the course of watching half a dozen martial arts and self-defence videos on YouTube to get the lay of the fight, I ended up turning the final pin into some kind of sexy medieval half nelson instead, oops.
> 
> I hope I got the geography and timeline credible during Wiegraf’s year of hell (fleeing north, losing Boco, coming back to Lenalia, etc.). I made him into a drama queen about everything, but it’s pretty justified (and to be fair, he totally is one). I just really love this game, and Izlude and Wiegraf, and apparently my attempt to do them justice is by writing this lurid pornography.


End file.
